The effects of cognitive and metacognitive strategy activities on pre-service teachers? achievements in ?instructional design? course and their levels of cognitive and metacognitive strategy usage

The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of cognitive and metacognitive strategy activities on pre-service teachers? achievements in ?instructional design? course and their levels of cognitive and metacognitive strategy usage. In this research 2x2 split-plot factorial design was used. The independent variable of the research was activity type towards usage of strategies. The independent variable had two sub levels: cognitive strategy activities and metacognitive strategy activities. The three dependent variables were achievements of pre-service teachers? in ?Instructional Design? course, their levels of cognitive strategy usage and their levels of metacognitive strategy usage.The research was conducted on 90 students from Education Faculty Computer Education and Instructional Technologies Department of two universities one of which was Gazi University and the other Ahi Evran University. The participants were 2nd grade students enrolled in ?Instructional Design? course in the 2010-2011 Spring Term. Cognitive and metacognitive strategy activities, related with units of ?Instructional Design? course, were developed as the learning material. These activities were designed towards the course content and strategy usage in order to identify if the strategies were used or not, make the students use these strategies and enhance the level of strategy usage. Students were divided into two groups. One of these groups was given cognitive strategy activities and the other was given metacognitive strategy activities.After the experimental process of 14 weeks, results related with achievement were the following:According to the findings derived from covariance analysis (ANCOVA), there was not a significant difference between the post-test achievement scores according to the activity type (cognitive or metacognitive). Similarly, the one way variance analysis (ANOVA) results showed that there was not a significant difference between students? performance scores, which were taken from assignments related to the steps of instructional design process, according to the activity type. On the other hand, the one way variance analysis (ANOVA) results showed that there was a significant difference between students? performance scores, which were taken from activities related to the course content, according to levels of strategy usage before experimental process. This result was the same for both groups in one of which cognitive strategy activities were applied and the other metacognitive strategy activities were applied.After the experimental process, results related with levels of cognitive and metacognitive strategy usage were the following:For the group which was applied cognitive strategy activities, t-test results showed that there was not a significant difference neither between pretest-posttest Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) cognitive strategy mean scores nor between pretest-posttest MSLQ metacognitive strategy mean scores. On the contrary, t-test results showed that there was a significant difference between pretest-posttest MSLQ cognitive strategy mean scores and also between pretest-posttest MSLQ metacognitive strategy mean scores for the group which was applied metacognitive strategy activities. According to the findings derived from covariance analysis (ANCOVA), there was not a significant difference neither between posttest MSLQ cognitive strategy mean scores nor between posttest MSLQ metacognitive strategy mean scores according to the activity type. For the group which was applied cognitive strategy activities, the one way variance analysis (ANOVA) results showed that there was a significant difference between students? performance scores, which were taken from activities related to strategy usage, according to levels of cognitive strategy usage and also according to levels of metacognitive strategy usage before experimental process. On the contrary, for the group which was applied metacognitive strategy activities, the one way variance analysis (ANOVA) results showed that there was not a significant difference between students? performance scores, which were taken from activities related to strategy usage, neither according to levels of cognitive strategy usage nor according to levels of metacognitive strategy usage before experimental process.According to the students? opinions, the differences in the study habits of the students, who worked on cognitive strategy activities or metacognitive strategy activities, were found similar. On the other hand the differences in planning, monitoring and regulating habits of these students varied in terms of time management. Satisfaction levels of students towards activities were found to be high. Also in general, students? opinions about these activities were positive.Keywords: Self-regulated learning, cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, instructional design